Synbiotic approaches to human health and well-being

Synbiotics refer to combinations of probiotics and prebiotics that act synergistically to confer health benefits to the host. As a therapeutic strategy, they provide a gentle yet powerful method for modulating the composition and metabolic output of the human gut microbiota. In the context of achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, synbiotics have the potential to act as cost-effective prophylactic measures against a variety of human ailments, ranging from infant diarrhoea to metabolic and inflammatory diseases in adults, by maintaining commensal microbial communities and metabolic networks that are conducive to human health.